


Wiedźmin

by Binary_Sunset



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Avatar Geralt, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:54:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28516005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Binary_Sunset/pseuds/Binary_Sunset
Summary: Statement of Julian “Jaskier” Pankratz regarding an incident with his roommate, Geralt Wiedźmin.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 18
Kudos: 54





	Wiedźmin

**Author's Note:**

> Transcript formatting stolen from here

[CLICK]

ARCHIVIST

Statement of Julian “Jaskier” Pankratz regarding an incident with his roommate, Geralt Wiedźmin. Original statement given August 7th, 2014. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)

I probably should’ve known that there was something off about Geralt when I first met him.

Though I guess I should probably go back a bit. I’m a musician under the stage name Jaskier. It’s Polish for buttercup, which I thought would be a bit fun since it reveals me as both a child of immigrants and an unrepentant queer. But when I first moved to London for University, I got a flat that I shared with another music major. Essi Daven was her name, and she was the keyboardist for our band. We’d play the local bar scene at night. Essi was a waitress for the lunch shift, then tended the bar on nights when we weren’t playing, while I wrung a meagre living out of a fairly uneventful office job. And it was good. I was living with my best friend and starting to work towards my dream of becoming a professional musician.

That was until Essi went missing.

I mean, with our schedules being what they were, it wasn’t uncommon for the two of us to miss each other. She’d usually be sleeping off a shift by the time I woke up for work, and she’d be either waiting tables or bartending by the time I got home. But this was a Friday, and we were set to play that night, so when I got home and the flat was empty... 

I called the police. It wasn’t like her to disappear before a show without telling me. They basically told me to wait and if she didn’t show up in the morning, to call again. I told them that it wasn’t like her to miss a show, or not to pick up her phone, but they told me there were plenty of reasons for that. Maybe she was just hungover somewhere or out with her work friends. Their words didn’t comfort me, but I still played the show.

She’d been missing for a week, and rent was coming due. I made good money at the time, but certainly not enough to cover the entirety of rent for a London flat when I was used to paying half. You know how expensive it is to live here. So I started to put some feelers out for a new roommate.

Geralt was… a friend of a friend, I suppose. I’d never met him before, but my friend, Triss Merigold, told me he’d recently broken up with her friend, Yennefer Vengerberg, and needed a place to stay. He said he was willing to pay the security deposit _and_ his share of the rent, sight unseen. Honestly, I was so desperate, I had him sign the lease before I even met him.

When the bastard inevitably showed up, I was sure I’d made a terrible mistake. His appearance is… striking, to put it politely. He’s a big guy, about a head taller than me, and built like a swimmer. You know, he’s not wide, but he was wearing a t-shirt at the time and I could just _feel_ the power emanating from his biceps. I swore he could crush my head like a fucking watermelon with just a flex of his arm if he wanted to. But those forearms were riddled with scars. Old ones. They looked like some sort of animal had torn into his flesh and not let go. But I knew better than to ask.

Anyway, the reason I call him striking is his _eyes_. I’ve heard of people having amber eyes before, but not like Geralt’s. They weren’t just a warm brown or anything, they were bright yellow. The kind you only see on cats. I’ll never forget when I looked into them for the first time.

He was just carrying his things up the stairs, and I wanted to show him his room. I’d cleared out Essi’s things by then. Just put them in storage in the basement. I wasn’t ready to admit… you know… that she might not be coming back. And I didn’t want to just… go through her things before we knew she was gone. God, I _know_ she’s gone now, and I still haven’t even done it.

But the creepy thing about Geralt’s eyes… Every time I looked at them, it was like every inch of my body was telling me to _run_ . Like he was some sort of… predator and _maybe_ if I ran fast enough or hid well enough he wouldn’t catch me. I felt like I’d been staring at them for hours before I took a breath to steady myself. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, really. It felt like a bit of anxiety from Essi’s disappearance, which I was already _far_ too familiar with at that point.

I brought Geralt to Essi’s room, and he declined my invitation to help him. Well, he _grunted_ and I interpreted that as a “no.” And he didn’t seem to take any issue with my lack of help, so I just let him be. Maybe I should have noticed that he didn’t seem to need any help with the furniture, but I was printing missing person fliers for Essi. I was mostly happy not to be interrupted, as the task was stressful enough on its own.

And honestly, for the first few months living with Geralt was... nice, in away. He told me he worked nights, so he was asleep when I left for the day and on his way out when I got home. I never questioned what he did in his room while I was gone for the day, I just assumed he slept. When we did cross each other’s paths, he’d just give me an amicable grunt. He didn’t talk much, but I was okay with that. If I felt like talking, he seemed content to let me fill the silence. Though that first week I was so engrossed in helping the police search for Essi that I’d hardly wanted to speak with anyone, much less a silent stranger.

I’d asked him what he did once, and he told me “security.” Just that one word. I figured he was a night watchman of some sort. Maybe a bouncer at one of the bars. He certainly had the muscle for it, and it would explain why I often found him so intimidating. He didn’t seem to be in the mood to answer any followup questions, and I was far too emotional to want to ask any.

The first real incident was when I got back from my first gig. We’d replaced Essi on the keyboard by then, and even though I never felt like it was the same without her, the show must go on. But, naturally, I got home late. This was… the first Friday in July, so the 3rd, I think. Anyway, I’d stayed up to brew myself a cup of chamomile tea to relax. I always have trouble sleeping after a show. Being a frontman and feeding off the energy of the crowd leaves me buzzing for hours, so I had a post-show ritual to prepare for bed.

I was about halfway through my tea when Geralt came in. He was just… _covered_ in blood. It was like something out of a horror movie. It seemed to have started at his hands and just… gushed everywhere. He was wearing a t-shirt, but it was so soaked in blood that I could see it glistening in the fluorescent light of the kitchen. His whole face was red with it, and it had even managed to cake itself in his hair. See, Geralt has this white-blonde hair that I always used to think was a dye-job, but the front of it was all soaked blood red. And _God_ the smell. I didn’t used to think blood had a smell, but when Geralt entered the apartment, I knew that was wrong. As soon as he opened the door, it reeked of rusted iron and some sort of acrid undertone that almost made me sick.

I don’t think he noticed me at first, just diligently got to work attempting to close the door without smearing blood everywhere. When he did finally meet my eyes, he looked almost surprised. I must have looked horrified because all he said was “‘s not my blood.”

I just stuttered out a “I’m… glad it isn’t.” I couldn’t even begin to get anything else out.

Then he just walked right over to the kitchen sink and started to wash off his hands, before letting me know that it was getting late and that I should probably go to sleep.

I didn’t know what else to do, and there were few things that sounded better than just leaving this room and falling unconscious so I took his advice and went to tuck in for the night.

When I woke up the next morning to find the kitchen completely clean and my mug of tea in the sink, I was able to convince myself that it was some sort of stress dream. Though I think I knew in the back of my head that I was kidding myself. I can’t… un-smell the blood. But I never brought it up, and Geralt was never one for conversation to begin with, so I was mostly able to carry on with my life.

I really didn’t put everything together until I found Essi again. It was last night, actually. It’s… part of why I’m here, but I’ll get to that.

I was walking home after another gig. It was late, and I’d stayed after the set to have a couple drinks with the band. That’s... probably why I didn’t notice what was wrong with her.

It was on my way to the steps that lead to our back door when I saw her. She was just… standing. At the base of the stairs. Not talking or anything. I didn’t notice at the time, the way her shoulders hunched over unnaturally. Like a marionette with loose strings.

I was buzzed, but I’d know her anywhere. At that point, it didn’t even occur to me to ask where she’d been for so long, I just saw my best friend, and that was the only thing rattling around in my mind.

I broke out into a run and called out to her. She turned around, and that’s when it should have occurred to me that something was off.

The motion of it hardly felt human. She didn’t raise her feet to step, just gracefully spun around and was ready to catch me in her arms.

I fell into her, sobbing. Losing her and not even knowing what had happened was the single worst thing I'd experienced. And I had to go on, even in her absence. When I finally saw her again, it was like all the emotion that I'd had to repress just came flowing out of me.

Until I realised that she hadn't embraced me back.

It was then that I got a closer look at her. She was my Essi, I was sure of that, but she was just staring at me, unblinking.

I backed out of the embrace, asking her if she was okay, if she needed a doctor, if someone had hurt her 

And instead of answering, instead of letting me hear my best friend's voice one last time, her mouth dropped open, and a single, large spider made its way out.

I wanted to run. I wanted to go find a bush to throw up in. That _thing_ was not my friend. Maybe it had been at some point, but now it stared at me with those cold, unblinking eyes and all I could do was stand there, shaking, as that terrible arachnid made its way towards me.

I'm not sure where Geralt came from. In my mind, he just drops down from the sky like a superhero, but he must have leapt off the balcony or something. Either way, one second I was staring Essi -- well, the thing that used to be Essi -- in the face and the next, she was on the ground. And Geralt had…

Geralt had torn my best friend’s head off. He was talking more than I’d ever heard him speak, urging me to kill the spider. I didn’t even have time to wonder how he’d known about it before I was frantically trying to crush it under my boots. I did, and by the time I looked up, Geralt was covered in blood and elbow-deep in Essi’s corpse. I was about to ask what he was doing when he pulled out a white cluster of spider silk and crushed it with his hand.

He looked me over. I must have looked a mess: exhausted and slightly drunk from the gig and now shaking and staring at him. I suppose I must have been just as soaked in blood as he was, but it didn’t occur to me at the time.

He looked over at me, and even in the street lights, I could tell there was something odd about him. His yellow eyes seemed to reflect the light like a cat’s, and his pupils were blown out like mad. He didn’t say anything about that, though.

“Did you kill the spider?”

I took a breath, trying to get my voice back. I told him I’d crushed it.

He nodded at me, which I assumed meant something along the lines of “good” or “thank you.” And then his pupils returned to normal, and he looked at what remained of Essi.

“She was your roommate, wasn’t she?”

I just nodded. I… didn’t have any words left in me at that point.

“I’m sorry. The Puppeteer’s victims are already dead by the time it can control them like this. Even if it hadn’t been trying to control you, there was nothing I could do to save her.”

I wanted to ask him what the hell he was talking about, but instead I just stared. I probably looked about as dead-eyed as Essi had.

Maybe he took pity on me, because he placed a single hand on my shoulder and asked me if I wanted to come in and take a shower. He was done for the night, and could remove the bloodstains from my clothes.

I started walking up the steps, with Geralt keeping a tight grip on me, presumably in case I fainted or something. It seemed like it wasn’t his first time dealing with this sort of thing. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask.

He walked me to the bathroom and told me to shower, and that he’d come get my clothes when he heard the water running. He must’ve done it, because they weren’t there when I got back.

It was as I was showering that the shock finally wore off and I realised that my best friend was dead. That she’d been… killed by this Puppeteer thing. I cried. I even threw up a little.

If Geralt heard me, he didn’t say anything. When I came out in my towel, there was a large bucket in the corner of the living room and two cups of tea set out for us. He’d changed out of one black outfit and into another: sweatpants and a tank top that revealed more of the muscles on his arms and the scars that ran up and down them. I knew what they could do now, and yet there was a part of me that still desperately wanted to touch them.

I didn’t, of course. I just sat down next to Geralt. He offered me a blanket to throw around my shoulders, and I took it. I started sipping the cup of tea, and he just started… explaining. It was the most I’ve ever heard him speak, and I feel terrible that I don’t remember all of it.

The thing I remember most was the name. The Puppeteer. He said Essi must have run into another host on the night she vanished. This thing… it comes in pairs, he said. One stays in the body and lays its eggs in the stomach while the other controls the victim from above, manipulating their body like a marionette.

And I think that’s why I’m talking to you. If this thing is still out there, it must still be hurting people. Geralt says that you don’t kill things like he does, but maybe you can… I don’t know. I just want to get this out there. Maybe it can help someone.

ARCHIVIST

Statement ends.

We had some luck doing some followup with this one. Julian Pankratz and Essi Daven were on the lease for the address provided, according to their landlord, with Geralt Wiedźmin signing onto the lease starting in June. Both men moved out at the beginning of September.

Tim’s… contact at the police records office was able to pull up some information on Essi Daven. She was reported missing in mid-April, and her body was reported by Mr. Pankratz on the morning of August 7th, shortly before this statement was given. He was able to obtain the coroner’s report, which did mention the decapitation and apparent removal of organic matter from inside the abdominal cavity, consistent with Pankratz’s description of Mr. Wiedźmin’s actions. The police have ruled it as a probable animal attack, since no human is strong enough to rip the head off another person.

Sasha did some additional research on Wiedźmin, and it turns out that it’s the male form of the Polish word for “witch.” The Wiedźmin is a stock character in Polish folklore, mainly known as monster hunters that are partially monstrous themselves. Interesting, but most likely a coincidence.

Finally, Martin was able to get in contact with Mr. Pankratz himself. He still stands by everything in his statement, but would like us to note that he and Mr. Wiedźmin have been dating for the last five years and have recently got engaged. My concerns for Mr. Pankratz’s self-preservation instinct aside, he says that things have been relatively quiet where the Puppeteer is concerned, and that really, he just wants to put that all behind him now.

Recording ends.

[CLICK]

**Author's Note:**

> [My social media](https://linktr.ee/Binary_Sunset)   
> 


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